It's a slow tennis week, what with our Australian Open hangover still wearing off. So let's take a trip down memory lane.

Do you remember 1953? I don't either, but it was a helluva year for tennis.

Australian Davis Cup coach Harry Hopman revolutionized the game, in part by getting his players into the gym. Here are the defending champions as they prepared for another Cup Final against the U.S.: Happy-go-lucky Neale Fraser, strapping young Roy Emerson, prankster Merv Rose, wunderkind Ken Rosewall -- and the biggest star of them all, "Lewis Hoad." No Rod Laver yet, but this Australian team didn't need any more help.

The Australians had Hopman, but the Americans had glamor. Vic Seixas (whom I met at a tennis club a couple of years ago; he's still playing in his eighties) and Tony Trabert seemed to fly in straight from Hollywood. Trabert was the new Forest Hills champion. Seixas was Wimbledon's title-holder.

Showtime vs. the Lunch Pail Kids -- it was an epic battle. Lew Hoad, the avatar of the Big Game, clinched the Cup on the last day, defeating Trabert 7-5 in the fifth. Said Neale Fraser in 1994, after Hoad died at just 59: "Hoad was the first of the charismatic players we saw in the '50s. He produced a brand of tennis that was exciting, different to everyone else and a joy to watch."

Seventeen years later, these young Davis Cup stars had all shuffled into tennis history. Except the ageless Rosewall. He was still out there winning major titles -- except for Wimbledon, of course. He did come heartbreakingly close, though ...